Tag Archives: 1950s

In this British comedy, a formerly rakish submarine captain is transferred to a desk job. His reputation as a hero and playboy precedes him. He meets an old comrade and his gorgeous fiancee, a Yankee widow. His buddy is quite wealthy and the retired captain realizes that he too must make plenty of dough to steal the woman away. He immediately engineers an elaborate quick money scheme. First he makes it seem as if he has become a traitor in order to get the newspapers to write bad things about him. He then plans to sue them all for libel. He leaves his phony trail and then maroons himself on a desert island. He is later rescued and interrogated by the Special Branch. Fortunately, he convinces them of his innocence and continues with his plan. He then goes to the woman’s home and is there discovered by his buddy. The friend sees that the two really are in love and gallantly bows out.
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Two middle-aged men work as caretakers on an isolated dam construction site high in the snow-capped Italian Alps. When one of them leaves for the valley to spend Christmas vacation with his family he is temporarily replaced with an adolescent boy. The other man is both annoyed and intrigued by the boy and his habits: he listens to loud music, sleeps too long in the mornings and doesn’t drink any alcohol. They barely speak to one another in the first couple of days. But when an avalanche cuts their small hut from electricity they slowly start growing more fond of each other.
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The D-Day invasion of 1944 provides a backdrop for the Allied Artists actioner Screaming Eagles. Tom Tryon plays Private Mason, an ill-tempered member of the 101st Airborne Infantry division. Mason makes plenty of enemies with his negative attitude until good-guy lieutenant Pauling (Jan Merlin) straightens him out. The 101st’ s main objective (once all personal travails are swept away, that is) is to capture and hold a vital bridge in Normandy. Jacqueline Beer, later one of the costars of TV’s 77 Sunset Strip, provides the feminine interest as an attractive resistance fighter (were there ever any unattractive resistance fighters?) Featured in the cast are TV favorites Martin Milner and Alvy Moore and second-generation thespian Edward G. Robinson Jr.
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Producer Howard W. Koch’s impoverished Bel-Air company lensed this quasi-horror film somewhere in California’s Death Valley. Affecting a none-too-convincing British accent Mark Dana stars as Captain Storm, heading a colonial escort to a lonely archeological dig in Egypt in 1902. Along the way, the party, which includes the American wife (Diane Brewster) of the chief archeologist (George N. Neise), encounters a mysterious girl, Simira (Ziva Shapir aka Ziva Rodann, “Miss Israel of 1957), who warns them not to mess with the dead. They do anyway, of course, drawing the ire of the Gods. One by one, the scientists are decimated by Simira’s brother Numar (Alvaro Guillot), who is the reincarnation of the tomb keeper and grows older by the minute.
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Ilya is a cripple without the use of his legs. When he aids some weary travellers, they surprise him by giving him a potion that restores his legs. He immediately becomes powerful and sets off to prove himself to his King. Doing so, he fights the evil Tugars, a wind demon that looks like a cross between a goblin and The Noid, a zeppelin-like ambassador, and the evil Tugars. Ilya gets framed for a crime he didn’t commit, then is freed, then finally dispatches the Tugars and their dragon.
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Set in the Taish? period of Japan (dating from 1912 to 1926), Untamed follows the fiery Oshima (in a superbly eccentric performance by Takamine) as she passes from one suitor to another, a series of calamities befalling her along the way. Characteristic of Naruse’s work, urban and rural settings are juxtaposed: the moody Tokyo streets against a majestic mountain village. At each point, the various situations Oshima is caught in seem uncannily bound up with her surroundings. It’s worth noting that the film, while not widely known, is singled out for praise by critic Chris Fujiwara.
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Angered that her sister Celia has stolen her fiance, Dell Faring kills her and allows Celia’s husband David, knocked out in an argument with Celia, to take the blame and end up on death row. Later Dell, finding out that David’s young daughter Susan was witness to the crime and is undergoing psychiatric treatment, plans to eliminate her before her memory returns.
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On the mountainous frontier between British India and Afghanistan, circa 1860s, Zarak Khan kisses Salma, the youngest wife of his father, Haji Khan. Outraged, his father orders Zarak to be flogged to death but spares his life at the urging of an elderly Mullah. Zarak now leaves his village and becomes a notorious outlaw, prompting the British to assign a Major Ingram to capture him. Zarak and Ingram have several encounters, developing a grudging respect for each other. When Ingram is captured by Ahmad, one of Zarak’s rivals, Zarak risks his life to save the British officer.
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Four sisters in New Zealand fall for four U.S. soldiers en route to the Pacific theater in WWII.
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Ben Matthews gives up the flashy life of a riverboat gambler, hoping to settle down in Galena with his girlfriend, luscious entertainer Zoe. But Galena’s leading citizen is murdered on the boat; Ben, on arrival, finds a lynch mob after his neck, and flees. Three years of wandering later, Zoe’s letters stop coming and Ben returns to find her and attempt the hopeless task of clearing himself.
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